Glyphosate, Some Other Crop Protection Products In Tight Supply

If you still need to purchase glyphosate to tackle tough weeds or terminate cover crops this spring, be advised, it could be hard to come by.

“My retailers say while they have most of the glyphosate needed in-house, replacement product is very hard to get, and they’re taking care of prepaid customers first,” says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist and owner of Crop-Tech Consulting, Heyworth, Ill.

Iowa farmers are also encountering a tight supply of glyphosate. “I don’t know much about the shortage, other than the fact it is real,” says Bob Hartzler, Iowa State University Extension weed specialist.

Costs are trending higher. One Missouri ag retailer told Farm Journal editors on Wednesday that both branded and generic glyphosate prices are seeing a 20% increase. Along with that, many retailers are on allocation and currently unable to secure any additional supply of the generic herbicide.

Ferrie’s advice to farmers: “If you have prepaid for glyphosate, you need to call and take possession of it.”

That’s likely true for a number of other crop protection products this spring, according to Larry Steckel, University of Tennessee Extension weed specialist.

“My understanding is that a lot of other popular herbicides have been allocated and could be short at times this spring like Liberty, Anthem Maxx, Zidua, generic dicamba and generic fomesafen, just to name a few,” he writes in an article, available here: https://bit.ly/3ncxvj0

Consider your plan B. For growers unable to get adequate glyphosate this spring, Ferrie offers some considerations.

First, evaluate what weeds you need to control. In certain scenarios, dicamba, 2,4-D and growth regulators can do some of the heavy lifting that glyphosate normally performs.

“If you’re planting an Enlist soybean you can clean up with 2,4-D. If you’re planting a dicamba bean, you can clean up with dicamba,” Ferrie says.

“If you're in a non-GMO situation, and you can’t get glyphosate, you're going to have to rely on your soil-applied products and your 2,4-D, and you’re going to have to follow that label closely, and it could cause planting delays,” Ferrie adds.

Got cover crops? Farmers with cover crops need to be proactive sooner than later this spring about weed control and termination, if glyphosate is unavailable.

Right now, most growers have only winter annuals in fields, which Ferrie says can be handled with 2,4-D and dicamba. But as weed pressure builds in fields into May, that won’t be the case.

“The wild grasses, such as foxtail and barnyard grass, they're not up yet in central Illinois, so we can put a soil preemergence herbicide on now before they emerge and you won’t need the glyphosate,” he says.

However, Ferrie expressed concern about the costs associated with using something other than glyphosate to terminate cover crops.

“You might be able to bring them down with other methods, but that can get expensive,” he says. “Glyphosate is one of the main ways we control cover crops, so those guys are at some risk.”

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